Friends, I’m so excited! One of my absolute favorite birds is back! I saw one of my balcony this morning and all throughout my walk at Boundary Creek tonight. I’ve been waiting so long for this.
The Gray Catbird! I love Gray Catbirds. These little guys definitely have personality. First of all: they are super cute. I like their little black caps and their rusty rumps. Secondly, I love hearing their cat-like “meeeh!” calls coming from the bushes as I hike. They are also awesome because they are in the mimic family and their songs are a jumble of all sorts of interesting sounds. I am ecstatic that they are back and will definitely write a post about how great they are soon (so look out for that!).
We had a few “firsts” today. It was the first day in a whole week that it didn’t rain, so we walked at Boundary Creek. One of our “first of season” birds was the Baltimore Oriole. We spotted a male in a tree singing a song. Later in the walk we saw a male and female together. Last year we found a Baltimore Oriole nest at Boundary so I wonder if that nest will be used again this season or not.
We also have a new lifer for our list: the Field Sparrow. There were two looking for food on the side of the path. I originally thought that it could have been a Chipping Sparrow. However, Chipping Sparrow’s rufous cap is brighter and it has a dark eye stripe as opposed to the Field Sparrow’s lighter eye stripe. It’s always exciting to add a new bird to your life list.
Other birds we saw included American Robins, Carolina Chickadees, Canada Geese, European Starlings, Tree Swallows, American Crows, Song Sparrows, and Red-winged Blackbirds. We also saw a lot of cute rabbits.
Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. My mom, sister and I will be celebrating by going to Amico Island. We are hoping to see some more warblers so I’ll let you know what we see.
Also, exciting news! I will be going to my favorite place later this week for part of my vacation: the Cornell Lab of Ornithology! I will tell you more about this soon!
BirdNation 
Thanks for this description. I might have spotted a similar species in our backyard. I was having difficulty finding his I.D., and your Gray Catbird might be a cousin to my visitor, a gray bird with a longer body and a brownish-black cap… Maybe if I post a picture of my bird on My Special Photos, you could take a look to see what you think.
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I would love to look at the photo. Where can I find it?
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I had to search my photos to find what I thought might be your Gray Catbird. I posted it at My Special Photos — http://www.myspecialphotos.wordpress.com/2017-2-9/what-is-it
Hope you can connect to it; since I found a good snap, I’m really curious about its identity now! Thanks for your effort!
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Nuts! Wrong link! I used that title for a Cormorant I.D. Haha on me! Try this — I changed the link to: http://www.myspecialphotos.wordpress.com/2017-2-9/is-it-a-catbird
I’m really curious now, because upon a second look at your Catbird, I see the second picture does give him the appearance of a longer body; more so than the first, where he looks more compact. Nice to exchange bird thoughts with you, at any rate! Hope this link works for you!
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